Dairymen graze through exhibits and information at conference

Published: February 1, 2011 4:00 AM

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By AMANDA ROLIK

Staff Writer

DALTON -- One local conference is working to help individual graziers with a range of experience find a common ground.

Last Thursday and Friday was the 10th annual North Central Ohio Dairy Grazing Conference. Taking place at the Buckeye Event Center in Dalton, the conference marked 10 years of informative speakers and useful vendors, but more importantly, it marked 10 years of the sharing of knowledge amongst the country's passionate graziers.

The North Central Ohio Dairy Grazing Council is made up of four individuals, along with Leah Miller of the nonprofit organization Small Farm Insititute serving as an ex-officio member. Each year, one council member rotates off and a new member is elected by conference attendees.

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The member who rotates off serves as a speaker at the next conference. This year, that person was Noah H. Yoder, a dairy grazing farmer in southern Holmes County who gave a talk about his family farm.

According to Miller, the conference's speakers aim to share stories about what works for them in order to help fellow dairy grazing farmers. The conference is an opportunity for graziers to meet and relate, and it is considered a resource for beginning and intermediate farmers.

"This activity is very individualistic, but there are some commonalities," Miller said.

The four men who originally planned the conference when it began in 2002 felt the same way when they started it.

Lloyd Miller of Berlin, Mike Gessel of Wooster, Ernest Martin of Shiloh and Eric Grim of New London had met graziers from their neighborhoods as well as from different states and even different countries through attending conferences and workshops throughout the 1990s.

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The group wished to learn more, and went about planning a conference in their own region. They saw an opportunity to hold an event for farmers, planned by farmers, that would serve to build a community of individuals with a range of experience.

"We wanted to learn from graziers outside the region," Martin said.

This year's keynote speaker, Jon Bansen, agrees that the conference is a place for give-and-take of new ideas.

"Grazing's really a mental process," Bansen said. "It is a passion."

Bansen and Martin both feel that graziers all have their own practices, and what works for one may not work for another, but it's important to communicate and discover new ideas.

"The basic concepts are the same; it's how you plug it into your farm," Bansen said.

"To me, being a grazier is someone who thinks outside of the box," added attendee Doug Billman.

The conference fosters "out of the box" thinking by allowing people to hear new ideas and practices that they may not have tried on their own farm.

Bansen is in his 20th year of owning his own organic grazing farm, and his talk focused on the efficient use of energy and how to utilize grazing to its maximum benefit.

Bansen also talked about downsizing, as sometimes adding cows to an operation "may not be the right fit," Bansen said. He aimed to explore other opportunities to become self-sustaining.

Other talks covered topics such as the cost of raising heifers, farming with mules, budgeting and a talk from the four conference founders reflecting on the last decade.

The conference also included several break-out sessions and vendors for various seeds and equipment as well as certifiers for organic farmers.

Reporter Amanda Rolik can be reached at 330-287-1635 or e-mail arolik@the-daily-record.com.